Water cooled flexible jumpers are widely used in a variety of applications such as welders, or other machines usually having relatively movable parts.
Such jumpers are conventionally made by cutting conductor stranding to length, installing a core such as a spring, and then soldering the stranding into a socket in a machined copper termination. The termination has a fitting which telescopes into the spring core end. The jumper is inserted into a hose which is sealed to each termination, and water can be circulated through the jumper.
Usually the conductor stranding is a series of individual stranded copper cables arranged around the core spring. The cables are placed adjacent each other in circular fashion around the central core spring. It may take a number of such cables completely to surround the core spring. Such cables are difficult to assemble and solder, and moreover, solder tends to wick up the strands providing irregular stress concentrations at or near the termination, which may cause premature failure of the jumper.
It would accordingly be advantageous to have a flexible jumper which is easier to make and assemble accurately, and which avoids the solder wick up problem, all providing an improved flexible jumper with a longer service life.